Mind your mind

“It’s all in the mind” we hear this pretty often. What is the mind? Does it really exist? According to the Bhagavad Gita at the gross level we have the indriyas (senses), above which we have manas (mind) and then the buddhi (intellect) and finally the atma (the self).

We know we have a brain. So then what is the mind? The mind in reality does not exist. The mind is nothing more than the manifestation of our beliefs, opinions, biases and judgments. The mind exists when there is a parade of thoughts in our brain. The mind is like the “current” in water.  It is a dynamic quality and not a physical entity. In fact our mind only exists in our mind.

However while the mind does exist physically as an entity it does come into existence as a manifestation of our deepest beliefs, biases and opinions.

We have to be mindful of our mind. Some of things we need to do are

Free yourself of assumptions: Our thoughts and actions are usually based on our ideas. Many a time we tend to assume things. We see only a snapshot of people or events. We get to know people only through small windows. However the mind tends to average out these experiences from individual events. It tends to interpolate meaning into seemingly unconnected events. The danger of this is that we tend to assume things that are not typically true. For e.g. just because somebody smiles at you on a couple of occasions does not mean that they think favorably of you. Similarly, just because someone is brusque with you on a few occasions does not mean that they dislike you.  We have to question our assumptions and generally not extrapolate from isolated events

Free yourself of prejudices: This is another trait of which most of us are guilty of. We are prejudiced towards certain people or acts. We just instantaneously develop a dislike towards somebody or some task. For e.g. if your boss gives you some task to do on a regular basis we may transfer our dislike of our boss to the task given. We will cringe when we have to do this task. It is really important that we step back and try to put off our biases and look at the task or person clearly. If we do that we may find that we really like the task.

The predictable mind: Our mind is in many ways quite predictable. If we like someone then we go out of our way to protect them. For e.g. a parent is extremely careful that his/her child does suffer any pain. Conversely when we hate someone we ensure that we inflict maximum pain to the person we hate. Our mind relishes the pain that somebody whom we hate has to undergo.

So while the mind is a manifestation of our fears, hopes and prejudices it is extremely important that we use our faculty of reason and question these deep-seated beliefs. We have to extremely mindful of our mind.

Who are you?

That must have taken you by surprise. Rather than asking “Who am I?” have you ever wondered “Who you really are?” in the eyes of others. Who you are in your own eyes is usually quite different from the way other people view you

You are the only person who spends the most time with yourself which would probably indicate that you know yourself best. But there is an issue here as our assessment of ourselves sometimes can be quite erroneous. We may have wrong ideas, wrong biases and wrong judgments on which we base our own image of ourselves.

This does not necessarily mean that the assessment others have of us will be right. In some cases it may be more correct than our own view in others it may not.

So how do others see us? Other’s view of us is based on the interactions that we have them.  In each interaction people see us through a small window. Each subsequent interaction is another window. Typically what happens is that people tend to interpolate and average out your personality between these windows and arrive at what they think  is your personality. For e.g. if several of your meetings with an recent acquaintance of yours shows up your humorous side then it is quite natural the other person will assume that you are generally a fun guy to be with. If you appear irritated and testy during your brief interactions the other person will form an opinion that you are generally a short tempered person.

So while in your own mind these behaviors of yours may really be temporary the other person view of you will be based on these windows into your personality rather than who you really are. So don’t be surprised if somebody has a completely different idea about you as you have of yourself.

This is particularly important in the professional world. Make sure you keep sending those “Hello” messages to your manager and your colleagues. This is also another reason to network and interact more often with your friends and colleagues so that your perception of yourself and the perception others have of you are in sync.